Businesses now understand the importance of using Facebook and Twitter for marketing. However many small businesses have failed to tap the power and reach of Linkedin.com, the popular social networking site frequented by professionals, career aspirants, business owners, corporate leaders and self-employed people.

 

Linkedin can be a powerful tool for online marketing and business needs. Unlike Facebook, Linkedin is not merely a social networking site where you can post comments or pictures. Rather Linkedin is a huge network of influential people from around the world who are there to establish contacts with people relevant to their business.

 

Here is why you must utilize this powerful tool for your business:

 

Build contacts

Linked-in lets you build a strong network of contacts. You don't need to know the individual in person to get in touch with him/her. Either you can send an introductory message or ask a mutual contact to introduce you to the concerned person. So this way, you can meet potential clients, business providers and experts in your business.

 

Increased visibility

Having a profile on Linked-in increases your visibility and credibility. People are more likely to do business with you knowing that you have a good number of acquaintances on Linkedin which others also know and trust. Besides, Linkedin pages are also indexed by Google. So if your public profile on Linkedin has a high page-rank on Google, it works great for your business.

 

Get feedback

Whether you want to know about the feedback of your latest product or service, you can post your business related questions on Linkedin. The Answers feature on Linkedin allows you to share ideas, post questions to your connections and give suggestions. In short, you get instant feedback.

 

Hire new people

Linkedin is an effective platform for sourcing new talent. Whenever you require new people for your organization, you can easily search relevant profiles on Linkedin for recruiting people. This saves a lot of expenditure on discovering or searching for potential candidates.

 

Linkedin is one of the effective tools for marketing your business. As a CEO or a senior executive, you need to meet new people in business and learn from them. You can join a corporate executive coaching or executive business coaching sessions where you can meet experienced CEOs, presidents and senior executives and learn from their mistakes. You can share your fears without any hesitation as in an executive coaching  as everything is confidential and get honest feedback.